Coaches Blog

I am in Germany to assist with tryouts for US Youth Soccer ODP Europe. On October 3, I watched the FC Astoria Walldorf U-16 match and attended the U-19 Bundesliga FC Kaiserslautern versus Karlsruher SC. match.

I toured the FC Kaiserslautern training facilities where the US Youth Soccer ODP Europe teams train once per month. The facilities for training are impressive with four full-size, grass fields, two full-size, artificial fields, a small, sand field for beach soccer, pendulum poles, two soccer tennis fields, a soccer volleyball field, numerous goals of various sizes, a half mile running trail, a weight training room, locker rooms and a basketball court.

The facility is something we still lack at our youth soccer clubs; that being a dedicated training area. We have a lot of game field complexes and on many of those our teams train. But few, if any, of our clubs have a dedicated training facility with all of the tools to develop the players. This fact must be a consideration as we continue to build soccer facilities.

On October 4, I taught a U-10/U-12 Youth Module coaching course. We had 27 coaches attend the course. Some of the coaches work with US Youth Soccer ODP Europe and most who attended the course are coaching in youth services for the United States Army. This is the first time that most of the coaches had been through a US Youth Soccer course.

We had class sessions and field sessions with the coaches and then they had the opportunity to work with U-10 and U-12 players. The players were from the FC Astoria Walldorf club. So it was interesting having American coaches speaking in English while coaching German kids. Fortunately, we had four coaches in the course who are fluent in both languages and they helped to translate. The U-12 kids did pretty well with understanding the coaches since they study English in school. Everyone had a good time and the kids had big smiles all during training as they played in game-like activities. The course candidates will receive their certificates from Maryland Youth Soccer.

Yesterday, I met with Oliver Brandt the Director of Coaching for the FC Astoria Walldorf club. He gave a presentation on the Dietmar-Hopp-Jugendforderkonzept project. The project funds seven facilities across the country. The sports played at the facilities are football (soccer), handball, golf and ice hockey. The children who participate at the facilities are not only trained in their sport but also receive tutoring in academics each day, when they turn seventeen they receive a mentor who gives them career counseling. The athletes participate outside the club too with interaction with the elderly, disabled players and cultural exchanges. The intent of the project is to develop the whole person not just the athlete. They are looking to grow good citizens as well as sportsmen and women.

Today, I leave for London to participate on Wednesday in the Leaders in Football conference at Chelsea F.C. On Thursday, I will attend a similar conference for Leaders in Performance. That conference will also be at Chelsea and will include soccer, basketball, ice hockey, tennis and cycling. I will have more for you next week on the two conferences and the final US Youth Soccer ODP trials in Bitburg.